<p>Tests
SAT 1 1750; M=650 W=480 R=600
(Taking in December, aiming for 2,200+)
SAT 2; Japanese =660</p>
<p>ACT 26
Retaking, aiming for 32+</p>
<p>APS
World history 3
US History 2
Psychology 3
Chemistry 2</p>
<p>Courses 9th-11:
4 APS 1 honors; 3 City College Courses which I got A's in.</p>
<p>Senior Classes:
AP Calculus AB
AP English
AP Government
AP Japanese
AP Phyiscs B
AP Economics
Advanced Journalism
college and career
general Business course at city college</p>
<p>Extracurriculars
1. Dragon boat team (drummer, paddler, race captain) 4 years
2. buildOn club (Vice president) 3 years
3. California scholarship Federation (3 years)
4. Peer mentor/coach (2 years)
5. Committee at school (Cochair) 3 years
6. Track and field 2 years
7. Spirit committe 2 years</p>
<p>Awards
- service leader awards
- 1st and 2nd place dragon boat medals
- miss teen chinatown scholarship finalist
- charity princess
- good student award from chinese school</p>
<p>Jobs
- Swimming instructor at ucsf (3 months)
- Senior Companion (3 months)
- Small Business Store (1 year); coached/train employees
- Tutor 2 months + still going</p>
<p>Volunteer
- Volunteers Club 200 hours @ various events (4 years)
- Lagunda Honda (spirit coordinator) 3 months
- Bryant Day Care center 3 months</p>
<p>Summer Programs
-Accounting Career Awareness Program summer residency at UCBerkeley
- Outward Bound Youth Leadership Corps</p>
<p>UCSD doesn’t have a business major, I hope you know that <code>-</code> They only have Economics, Management Science and Econ-Math.</p>
<p>And your GPA (unweighted and weighted), ACT score, and AP scores are a bit too weak for UCSD…</p>
<p>Also, are you fluent in Japanese? I know that anything lower than 750 puts you in bottom percentiles for SAT II’s in Japanese/Chinese, because so many fluent asians take them to get easy 800’s. I heard from several sources that anything lower than the 780–800 range in those languages (if you’re asian) is actually used against you, because you should be able to easily ace the SAT II if you can speak it.</p>
<p>Yeah don’t worry too much, you have a good chance of getting in. Your extracurriculars are REALLY strong. But just one thing - you only have 1 SAT II score?</p>
<p>There’s no business major so you could try for management science instead.</p>
<p>Her GPA/Scores/Overall stats aren’t high enough, and she has a declining GPA.
Her extracurriculars probably won’t be able to pull up the weight her low stats hold /: cause the UC’s comprehensive review primarily revolves around stats.</p>
<p>You can’t base the majority of people’s admissions on a select few special circumstances… sure, anyone could have a chance, but I don’t think you should tell her that she’s probably in, when her stats are a lot lower than UCSD’s average. UCSD isn’t a private school, and as you can see on the comprehensive review, extracurriculars don’t play too big of a role–unless you’re ASB President of your school, Districts/States Athlete, etc. </p>
<p>I don’t mean to be rude, but I just don’t think you should tell her that when it’s not the truth. I know people with lower stats than her too, but they came from incredibly poor schools/families, and were at the top of their class. The students I’ve met at UCSD with low SAT/SAT II/AP scores had 4.0’s, or were valedictorians. One of my close friends had a pretty crappy GPA (3.2) relative to UCSD’s average, but he had a 2250 on his SAT’s. I’ve yet to come across a student with so-so GPA & scores. </p>
<p>Someone even ranked her for all the UC’s and first/second tier UC’s were either reaches/low matches /:</p>
<p>She needs to score really well on her SAT/ACT’s. Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback you guys! It definitely helps. Do you think my chances are a bit more solid if my gpa was 3.75 (+city college courses i took) and brought my SAT to 2000+?</p>
<p>Do you have any special circumstances (ex- Death in family, family member with some sort of illness, have cancer/tumor, low income, etc)? Because if so those are major points right there that you can get if you just mention it somewhere in your app. I put my special circumstance in the 3rd essay</p>
<p>There’s a 3rd essay!? I do have special circumstances but I heard that writing those for your personal statement makes it a sob story which is frowned upon by the UC admissions people</p>
<p>The 3rd essay isnt really an essay. It just asks if there’s anything else you want to mention that you weren’t able to do so in the other parts of the application.</p>
<p>I just briefly put down what my family circumstance was and how that affected me and my schooling.</p>
<p>If your circumstance doesnt pertain to anything else in your application, just briefly explain it there</p>
<p>One parent = unemployed, couldn’t pay pills so i had to work a lot of hours which resulted in my grades decreasing. Towards end of Junior year my uncle had died from cancer and my unemployed parent was getting really sick and didn’t have health insurance so I had to help him out. + I was emotionally confused/scared. Summer I matured over my uncle’s death, used my money for my parent to go hospital and is helping him find a job. So I’m hoping to show I’m still ambitious and wanting to succeed in college with my 6 APS and city college course in senior year + hopefully a major increase in SAT score.</p>
<p>You’ll obviously show in your application that you’ve had a job or several of them. So in the third essay just explain that during _______ year, you’re dad became unemployed and so to help out your family you had to get a job and invest a lot of time into it which resulted in your grades dipping. (No need to go further than that in my opinion).</p>
<p>I dont think they grant points for a death in family if its not immediate (because that is automatic full points for that category). But it wouldnt hurt to mention his death. Also, show that you were really close with your uncle so his death was really hard on you and that it was difficult to deal with</p>